Blog Posts
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Pothier’s Mailbox: Misunderstanding the Moment of Contract Formation under the Contract Act
[Posted by V. Niranjan] (The following guest post is contributed by Shivprasad Swaminathan, who is Associate Professor at the Jindal Global Law School) The argument The law on the moment of contract formation applied by the courts in India and endorsed by the scholarly literature rests on a mistaken understanding of s. 4 of the Indian Contract…
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A Move Towards “Pool in India”; However, Room for More Reforms Exists!
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] [The following post is contributed by Yashesh Ashar, who is a tax and regulatory consultant. Views expressed are personal.] The Finance Bill, 2016 has given in to the much sought-after demand of the domestic private equity (PE) industry by amending the provisions relating to the tax withholding obligations for the category…
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Gender Diversity and Government Companies
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] It has been more than a year since a provision in the Companies Act, 2013 came into effect that requires all listed companies to have at least one woman director. As we had previously discussed, companies scrambled to comply with the requirement as of April 1, 2015, the effective date. However,…
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Stamp Duty on Inter-State Amalgamations
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] [This post is slightly longer than our usual posts. I would like to thank a reader for drawing attention to a judgment that is the subject matter of this post] Stamp duty on schemes of amalgamation undertaken through sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956 have tended to experience…
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Bombay High Court on Disallowance under Section 14A of the Income Tax Act and the Binding Nature of Judicial Precedents
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] [The following guest post is contributed by Kruthika Prakash, Advocate, Madras High Court] The Bombay High Court has recently issued an important judgment in HDFC Bank v. DCIT [2016] 67 taxmann.com 42 (Bom.). The High Court has dealt with the issue of applicability of section 14A of the Income Tax Act…
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M&A Trends in 2015: Focus on “ease of doing business” [ABA India Update]
[Posted by Satyajit Gupta] [The following post is contributed by Satyajit Gupta, Principal – M&A/ Corporate at Advaita Legal. Views are personal, and comments are welcome] With the National Democratic Alliance (“NDA”) gaining a decisive majority in the 2014 general elections, the expectation was that India would experience dramatic growth in all sectors, as the Government…
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Press Note 3 of 2016: ‘Old wine in a new bottle’?
[Posted by Satyajit Gupta] Press Note 3 of 2016 issued by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has had a mixed reception – e-commerce companies have largely remained silent, while some ‘brick and mortar’ retailers have welcomed the prohibition on influencing the price of goods amongst others. We believe that pending litigation and…
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Recent Papers on Corporate Governance
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The following papers on corporate governance in India are available on SSRN. Details, including abstracts, are set out below: 1. Corporate Governance and the Indian Private Equity Model by Afra Asharipour. Private Equity (PE) firms have long invested in Western firms using a leveraged buyout (LBO) model, whereby they acquire a…
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Private Companies Subsidiaries of Overseas Holding Companies — Changes in Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] [The following guest post is contributed by Siddharth Raja, Founding Partner of Samvad Partners. Views are personal, and comments are welcome] In an earlier blog post, I had examined in detail the issue whether Indian “private” companies that are subsidiaries of foreign or overseas bodies corporate retain their incorporation status for all…
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Delaware Court on the Question of “Control”
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] We have been debating on this Blog (here, here and here) the concept of “control” in a company in the light of the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI’s) consultation process that is currently underway. In this context, it would be useful to consider developments from elsewhere that may be…